Best ultraportable keyboard ever

Specifications

The Acer TimelineX 1830T-68U118 I am reviewing today runs 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium, uses an Intel Core i7-680UM CPU, has 4GB of RAM, a 500GB HDD, and a 11.6-inch 1366 x 768 resolution screen. It uses Intel HD graphics and has a full size keyboard. It can be purchased now for $899.99.

Benchmarks

To test the performance of the AS1830T-68U118 notebook I will be using Battery Eater Pro, iTunes encoding, and my movie encoding test. The first test up is iTunes encoding. It took the Acer TimelineX 1830T-68U118 1 minute and 39 seconds to encode my test album of Stone Temple Pilots Core to AAC from MP3. The next test up was movie encoding where I took the Magic of Flight video from Microsoft and encoded it to XviD with Lame MP3 sound. The Acer TimelineX 1830T-68U118 took 349 seconds to encode the movie. The final test was Battery Eater Pro. In power saving mode the notebook lasted 164 minutes. All of these scores are right where I expected an ultraportable to fall making it an average performance for the most part.

In Use

After running the benchmarks, I started working with the notebook to see how it did in the real world. The Acer TimelineX 1830T-68U118 has the best keyboard I have ever used on an ultraportable of this size. The keys are huge and the keyboard has keys that are larger than some notebooks with 13 or 14-inch screens. If you are a stickler for a good keyboard, the Acer TimelineX 1830T-68U118 is the machine you want to get in this size range. The keys are laid out well, the shift keys are sized the same, and typing feel and feedback are very good.

The little 11.6-inch screen is highly glossy making for lots of glare. It has good color reproduction and decent contrast with some hints of pixilation when wanting fast sequences of video. The notebook streamed video from Hulu in full screen and windowed mode well. I have had machines with Intel HD graphics before that didn’t perform nearly as well with streaming video.

The trackpad is positioned well and has buttons that are easy to click and have good feel. The track pad is accurate and has plenty of sensitivity. The notebook has a decent sound system as well. The volume can be heard in moderately loud environments.

The design of the Acer TimelineX 1830T-68U118 is very nice and attractive. The notebook is thin and has a lid that has a carbon fiber pattern on it and has a matte finish. That matte finish means that the machine picks up very little smears and smudges. Keeping a notebook with a glossy lid can be a big pain.

Verdict

Pros

Good video streaming performance

Fantastic keyboard

Cons

Expensive

Conclusion

The only bad thing I can say about the Acer TimelineX 1830T-68U118 is that you can find a larger machine with more performance in some benchmarks for the same price. If you want an ultraportable with decent performance and a fantastic keyboard, this is the machine for you.

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